They want to increase the length of their own terms for both legislative bodies.

They want to push for term limits in united states congress.

They want to limit your right to be heard at public meetings as an indivivual if you are percieved as belonging to a group or faction.

They want to sell space to commercial advertising on public school buses.

They want to prohibit simulated gambling devices.

They want to add to the cost of seeking reimbursement for wrongful incarceration by increasing the requirements to prove innocence.... The burden should remain on the state to prove guilt.

They want to make any statement made during a 911 call admissable in court, regardless of duress, or shock in the caller that could lead to self incriminating statements without having been read ones right as is required by law.

They want to allow "exempting certain underground injection control wells from permitting requirements"

They want to make the registered owner of a vehicle responsible for paying a ticket from traffic cams regarless of who was driving the vehicle.

The anti tax republican controlled legislature has already voted for an environmental impact fee, otherwise known as tax, on bottled water less than a gallon in size, which will add another 6% on top of standing sales tax. This takes effect in October of this year.

43 Comments

We got lucky and somehow escaped prison privatization.... "No" vote won yesterday. I tried to see the roll cal for votes, but you cant see it unless you get an account. Thought that was public information, but I guess only if they know you are looking....

It remains a problem of elites who pander to their business buddies. Seems like they always find ways around rules to break that problem.... People talk about how bad our schools are, but we moved from here to long island when i was in middle school, and i was not behind in anything, but was ahead in math. My sons classes in high school in FL were equitable to some college classes id taken. Yet now they have those stupid fcat tests, that mean the kids regular classes stop while they get taught test specific things and how to take the test. Jeb bush, or his wife, or friends had a stake in that money pile, and it has not benefitted the kids.

I think Florida lost their asses on education when they said.......let's make preschool mandatory. Nobody wanted to discuss where they money was coming from. So, the high schools have this skeleton curriculum now and you have to be really careful if you try to leave the state and transfer to another school.

And now they have so many failing charter schools that I really have to wonder just how long they can keep up this charade. Those schools are either equal to or worse than the public schools.

Pre-K is mandatory but it isn't paid for by the fed or state. As in any state, you can sign up for head start, but that is an assistance program. I paid $115 per week to send my son to Pre-K. Florida looses it's ass from overpaid elected officials and paying to keep up the land of vacation charade so the cities blend into the resorts like it's all one big playground. None of the companies that require this, help to pay for it. In fact, they more often get tax breaks on top of it. Then they pat each other on the back for "creating" millions of minimum wage jobs, many only for 4 months out of the year, so there is little in the way of tax revenue aside from summer tourism and the chumps that eat from the dirtiest kitchens in the country.

Hey, don't leave out the large number of illegal immigrants that are brought in to work in the hotels and kitchens in the name of competition. Or the uber rich people that love everything about the area so move and then have a knipshit about the noise. Or overrated cheeseburger and wing joints that move in to the neighborhood and literally destroy the surroundings. Or destroying homes in the name of business. Or jacking up the rent so high that all of the people that do the dirty work can no longer live there. Or my all time favorite, getting rid of house boats because they are dangerous. Or sending in an entire group of people from FEMA to estimate the damage after a hurricane and then all leaving but one person to do the actual estimates.

and this program precedes the legislation that requires pre-k. No additional funding was provided to make Florida pre-k anything like public school and if you didn't make the list or make too much money, you will pay as I did, out of your pocket for pre-k in the state of Florida. Florida did not assist in paying for my sons pre-k.

...right, it's all lumped together and I can see that being misleading. The state funding is for Head Start and similar programs throughout Florida, as I previously mentioned. You don't automatically get state funding for each child, that would be why you see half the report is about private centers, qualifications and licensing of those schools. I didn't get screwed lol. There are some counties footing the full bill i'm sure, but it isn't state wide. We don't have any other publicly funded programs for pre-k in my area besides Head Start and they don't have the facilities to cover what you're talking about.

I cant agree with you on that... Too many studies have shown the positive long term benefit of early education. It improves the brain, but the benefit decreases as education starts at older ages. But it has to be quality education through directed play with adult interaction, rather than babysitting with monitors.

No, and explicitly for the reason i explained.... Plus, we already pay for recycling programs and regular trash collection, and we have paid to upgrade waste collection sites. As a means to discourage the use of these bottles, why are they not add this fee to every other type of liquid delivered in a plastic bottle, like soda, juice, even rubbing alcohol and peroxide.... And if it is to discourage use, it is too weak.

Just want to add that when a hurricane is coming, bottled water completely sells out in every store in a threatened area, regarless of its size. This adds to the burden of emergency preparation for a cash strapped public...

I don't necessarily all of those things are bad. I don't think selling advertising space on buses is a bad idea. It moves money from corporations back to the local governments. And I can't see faulting Republicans for implementing an environmental impact tax.

If you doubt it, look at your grocery ans convenience stores... 3 times the area at least for stocking soda of all brands versus water of all brands, and asking a clerk who works in the store, he says people buy way more soda than water.

That could be a problem right there. I have no doubt that recycling works better with a little money involved. My state has a 5 cent deposit on all bottles and even though it is not enough to convince everyone to recycle, it is enough to encourage those who need the money more to keep parks and sidewalks free of empty bottles.

I dont know your state. We pay for garbage collection, but is reasonably priced and it is free to have large items collected, as well to go to the dump oneself. We dont have the same problems as in new york, for example, where it is so expensive to get rid of trash that people have started dumping all over, or just let trash accumulate. In that state, it does help to have a further financial incentive to take items for recycling because they have to pay per bag. Fewer bags, less cost.

Suppose it is advertising for condoms, viagra, violent video games, magazine covers that parents may not want their children exposed to. And the religious people should be very worried: they might show something that offends a religious persons morals, like birth control and family planning, or planned parenthood. These buses cart our kids around twice a day, and they will be subjected to the advertising.

Then the parents will complain and they will have to switch it to something not offensive. Or even more likely, they just won't put stuff like that on there to begin with (even though the kids see all that stuff everyday other places and talk about it with their friends).

This whole post is just a troll tactic to present some reasonable points along with off-the-wall things to make OWS look out of the mainstream, and out of touch with reasonable regulations such as environmental taxes. Seriously? Traffic cameras are bad?

This is not a troll tacit, and i cant even imagine why you might say such thing.

While there were many decent and well thought out pieces of legislation, these are some I found to be problematic.

You should be watching what your govenment is doing on all levels, from the town to the federal government. Letting little things go is still contributing to the erosion of our freedoms. This is just an example of what is going on in florida. and it is why i included the link to the states page.... So people could look and think for themselves.

What is your state government legislating? Maybe you should find their webpage...

No, I definitely think keeping an eye on state and federal government is a good thing. You just came across as a troll when you claimed that an environmental tax and term limits for the corporate puppets were bad ideas. Do you care to explain those further?

How about if someone uses your car for a burglry, and you are the one prosecuted because it was your car, even if you can prove you were someplace else at the time? Does that make it clear that they are not ticketing the driver, but the owner of the vehicle? Even if you were not driving? And perhaps you had loaned your car to someone which is legal? Or if your car had been stolen? The law will be that the owner is ticketed for the car running a red light or stop sign...

If you loan someone a vehicle, you are responsible for what the vehicle does while the person you loaned it to is in possession of it IMO. I could be wrong. You are most definitely not responsible for what the occupants of the vehicle do while in possession of it, such as violent crimes. You do make some good points, the same logic I am using has been used to defend things such as ballistic microprinting in the past.